


Fear

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [17]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Gen, Humans 30 Day Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 09:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10511427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Fill #28 for 'the' Humans Fanwork Challenge on Tumblr.Mattie and Max have a talk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So here we have it, the last fill from that challenge that I've been slowly posting over the last few....ages. 
> 
> And I just made it before April. Because somehow this challenge was a year ago. Anyway...
> 
> Of all my fills, this is the one that is retrospectively the most hilarious to me. Because the premise of it is pretty much exactly possible, given the end of series 2 and what happened to Leo there. But my characterisation of Max, my number one favourite character? So very very VERY _VERY_ off. He had such beautiful development over series 2, my small son has grown so much. So looking back at fic like this now is almost cringeworthy, because....no. This is not Max. But Mattie and Max are pretty much my BROTP for this show, so I'm still posting it for old times' sake.
> 
> Anyway, after this I am done filling the tag with fills...from _last_ year's challenge. There will be another one this year, taking place in June - please check it out on tumblr if that sounds like your sort of thing, or leave me a comment somewhere if you don't have tumblr and I can hook you up with the list of prompts!

 

Leo slept on. Only time would tell how thoroughly he’d recover. Mattie wondered if Mia, Fred and Niska really felt as calm as they seemed, if they were silent and still out of patience or despair.

The only one who was giving her anything to read was Max, who walked loops up and down the corridor. Mia was inside the room, charging at Leo’s bedside, and Mattie had been about to join her when she figured that while Leo wouldn’t even know she was there, she might actually be able to make some difference to his brother.

She smiled sympathetically as he came towards her. “That helping?”

Max stopped pacing, looked dejected. “It’s what Leo always does when he’s anxious. Up and down, over and over again, as if it makes the time go faster.” He paused. “I don’t think I can be doing it right.”

“Maybe it just doesn’t work for everyone,” Mattie suggested. “How ’bout a change of scenery? We could walk outside.”

“We?”

“If you want company.” She tried to say it airily, not to sound too desperate not to be alone, if that’s what he wanted to be himself.

“You don’t need to babysit me,” Max said, warily.

Mattie frowned, “I’m not trying to.”

He backed down immediately. “Sorry. I thought perhaps Niska had sent you. She thinks I’m not coping.”

“ _Are_ you coping?”

He didn’t seem to know how to reply to that, so Mattie patted his arm and said, “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.”

Once outside, Mattie selected one of the paths that led through the courtyard and out into the field which separated the building from the road, and they kept a comfortable pace - a bit slower than what she’d come to recognise as a Synth’s default, but not a dawdle either. It was cool, and there was a noticeable breeze, so Mattie zipped up her jacket. “Supposed to be summer,” she mumbled. Max didn’t answer.

“The others keep saying I shouldn’t think about what happens,” he said after a while, “If he doesn’t wake up. Because we don’t know anything for sure.”

“Mmmm. Not easy though, is it.”

“No. I don’t know how they manage to block it out.”

Mattie sighed. “Maybe they’re not. Maybe they just don’t want to talk about it. You know, dwell on it, or whatever.”

“But what if we _need_ to talk about it?” he asked. “What if this is it, and we have to go on without him?”

Mattie bit her lip, trying to think of something to say, because truthfully, ‘try not to think about it’ _was_ the first thing that came to mind. Weird how no-one ever found that sort of phrase comforting, but everyone carried on using them all the same.

“Then it’ll be awful,” she said, frankly, sensing that he needed it said how it was. “It’ll seem like the end of the world, but you’ll never forget him, will you?”

“Never.”

“And you’ve got all those memories, perfectly stored,” she continued. “With brains like mine, it all goes fuzzy in the end, and we forget all the little things. But you’ll always have him with you.”

Max was silent, but he turned his head to watch her as they went on walking, as if she’d said something incredible - as if she wasn’t just filling the gaps with words to distract herself from how worried she was herself.

“It won’t seem like enough,” she added. “Not me saying it now, and not then, if it happens. But it’ll be more than most people get.” A thought came to her mind, and she held it here for a while, wondering if it was appropriate to bring in an outside story, or if it would sound like she was making it all about her. She decided to risk it, in the absence of anything else being said. “…I don’t know if you know about my mum’s brother.”

“No. I didn’t know she had a brother,” Max said.

“She doesn’t,” Mattie said hurriedly. “Well, not anymore. He died when they were children. All she’s got left is a few pictures, a couple of things she remembers, but she thinks about him every day, I know she does.”

“I’m sorry.”

Typical Max. “So am I. But you know something? She thought we would hate her for never telling us about him, and she kept it a secret for ages. Even my dad didn’t know until last year. But now that we all know, it’s so much better. She can talk about him sometimes, and maybe we don’t understand but at least we can listen, it’s better to have that.” She wondered if he knew where she was going with this, but pressed on anyway. “And you’re gonna have that too, Max. You won’t be one your own, even if Leo’s….you know. You’ve got the Mia and Fred and Niska, you’re a family. You’ll all remember him together.”

“But we won’t have him.”

“No. Maybe not.”

“We were made for him,” Max reminded her. “That’s how we all started out. Now Mia’s got her job, and she’s got your mum and Sophie, and Niska’s got her new life and her new…group.” He chose the word carefully, unsure how to define Niska’s band of renegades in a way that didn’t sound terrifying. “And Fred is working with Dr. Morrow, undoing all of Hobb’s work. I’m the only one left. I haven’t found anything else.” He looked up at the sky, not slowing his pace, but gazing as if there was something to see other than cloud cover. “I don’t know what to be, if I’m not his brother. It’s all I’ve ever been.”

Mattie felt her heart break a little more. She’d thought it was already far enough gone, but his voice was so lost, so small.

“No,” she said softly. “There’s something else.”

“I know, I’m Mia’s brother and Fred’s brother and Niska’s brother. But they have their own lives…”

“Something else,” she repeated. “Outside of them. It’s not the same,” she added, quickly, “But something that’s just you.”

“What, then?”

She smiled up at him. “You’re my friend.”

Another thought came to her then, and she held this one too, turning it around until she was sure it was true. “My best friend, actually.” If there _was_ a contender nowadays, it was probably Leo, and in the situation they were discussing, that was irrelevant. “So you’d still have me.”

He smiled back at her, and she realised just how long it had been since she’d last seen that expression on his face. And just how much she’d missed it.

“Thank you,” he said, simply.

They turned back on themselves at the end of the field, back to face the world again as friends, as a united front.

 

 


End file.
